YANGON: China’s foreign minister met Myanmar’s military chief in Naypyidaw on Tuesday (May 2), officials said, the highest-ranking Chinese official to meet the country’s top general since a coup more than two years ago.
Myanmar has been riven by violence since the putsch that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in February 2021.
China is a major ally and arms supplier of the internationally isolated junta and has refused to condemn the military takeover.
China “stands with Myanmar on the international stage”, Foreign Minister Qin Gang told military chief Min Aung Hlaing, according to a Burmese-language statement from the junta’s information team.
“China advocates that the international community should respect Myanmar’s sovereignty and play a constructive role in helping it achieving peace and reconciliation,” Qin said, according to a later statement from the Chinese foreign ministry.
Qin will remain in the country until Thursday, according to the junta.
His predecessor, Wang Yi, visited Myanmar in July last year, meeting with his counterpart but not the junta chief.
Myanmar state media footage showed Qin being received by Min Aung Hlaing in a meeting hall decked with gold curtains and red wallpaper.
The two discussed “diplomatic relations, friendly cooperation, the recent situation in Myanmar, border trade, investments and cooperation on energy and electricity”, the junta statement said.
Qin said Beijing will continue to support Myanmar’s “development, accelerate key cooperation projects in the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, and carry out projects on agriculture, education and health care”, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Qin also met Myanmar’s military-appointed foreign minister and its minister for international cooperation, both statements noted.
Several Beijing-backed infrastructure projects are slated to run through northern Myanmar and link China’s landlocked Yunnan province with the Indian Ocean.